


Masquerade

by stillscape



Series: tumblr prompts collection [1]
Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Masquerade Ball Au, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 06:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12103047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: The last thing Jughead Jones wanted to do was spend New Year's Eve at a masquerade ball. The last thing Veronica Lodge wanted to do was let her boyfriend's best friend spend his evening sulking on the sidelines.





	Masquerade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartunsettledsoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/gifts).



> So this started as a short AU prompt on tumblr. House Stillscape: It Spiraled Out of Control.

“I cannot believe you talked me into this, Archie,” Jughead muttered. “I don’t see the appeal.” He reached a hand to the back of his head. Where his fingers usually met the comfortable, familiar wool of his ancient beanie, they now met only hair. Hair, and the thin elastic strap holding his mask in place. 

His  _mask_. 

New Year’s Eve spent hobnobbing amongst New York City’s social elite? If he  _had_  to do it, which apparently he did, he absolutely saw the appeal of going incognito.

(“You won’t even feel like yourself!” Veronica had argued, sounding a little too much as though she thought that would be a good thing.) 

“It’s going to be fun,” Archie insisted, although he sounded a little nervous. They had just entered the ballroom, which was truly massive, and already half filled with people. “Unless...what if I can’t find Veronica?” 

Jughead pointed just left of the center of the room, at a petite, dark-haired woman clad in head-to-toe aubergine sequins. She was talking to another woman. When she turned her head slightly, he could see that her mask—also aubergine, and in the shape of a cat’s face—was held in place with a string of pearls. 

“That’s clearly Veronica,” he said. And, although Archie was wearing a mask too, he could see Archie’s face brighten at the sight of his girlfriend. The two had only been dating a couple of months, so the shiny newness would have remained for Archie even if Veronica wasn’t literally shiny at present. 

(Archie kept saying this was different, that Veronica was different, but Jughead was reserving judgement on that for now.)

He sidled over to the edge of the room, accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, and found a slightly shadowed column to lean against. 

If nothing else, he thought, it would be a good night for observing. He leaned against his column for a good long while, and when he saw a couple of chairs open up nearby, he quickly claimed one. And he observed. He observed New York City’s social elite dance to the live thirty-two-piece orchestra that occupied one corner of the ballroom, grab hors d’oeuvres from passing penguin-suited waiters. Despite the masks everyone wore, it was clear to see most people recognized each other. Jughead, of course—being not at all a part of this social set—recognized no one. 

This was a long, _long_ way from Sunnyside Trailer Park. And, despite the midnight blue tux with slim velvet lapels that Veronica had personally determined to be the ideal garment to, in her words, “set off his looks”—despite the bow tie, the neatly combed hair, the mask, and the lack of hat—Jughead still felt completely like himself. 

 

 

As far as he could tell, Veronica was determined to keep Archie on the dance floor all night. Between Archie’s red hair and Veronica’s general aura, it was easy to keep track of the couple even as Veronica’s social butterfly tendencies led them to say hi to what seemed like every single person in the morass of revelers. Only once had they whirled past him with champagne in hand, but despite the lack of alcohol, they both seemed intoxicated. He watched Archie extend his arm over Veronica’s head, and he watched Veronica twirl impossibly fast circles on the end of it, the bottom of her gown expanding in a perfect flare. He watched Archie pull her close again ( _when_ , exactly, had Archie learned to dance?) and he watched Archie duck his head low, burying his face in the side of Veronica’s neck, and he watched Veronica’s face break into a huge, dazzling smile. 

Slowly, unwillingly, a sensation began to push at the corner of Jughead’s mind. It started low in his body, a sort of dull throb in his chest and fingers, and began traveling upwards; as it did so, watching Archie and Veronica became harder and harder. When the feeling reached his brain—by which time it had achieved a semi-articulated form—he downed the end of his _second_ glass of champagne in one gulp and waited, hating himself all the while, for the bubbles to do their work. They did (after all, it was more than he usually drank, and hitting his stomach on less than he usually ate), but not before his brain had delivered a hard but incontrovertible truth. 

He was jealous. 

Jealousy was hardly an unfamiliar feeling to Jughead, but it was one he’d learned to push down over the years, one he’d learned to wad into a little ball of numbness he could keep hidden in the recesses. There was simply no point in letting himself feel it. After all, the parts of Archie’s life he most envied were hardly inaccessible to him. While Archie’s childhood bedroom remained a shrine to his high school years, what kind of counted as Jughead’s had been converted back into Fred Andrews’ home office, which was what it had been before their sophomore year. His old bed might be gone, but Fred had put a pullout couch into the office—like home offices needed pullout couches—and the few small boxes of possessions he hadn’t brought to New York remained in Fred’s attic. It was good enough, and more than he could have expected. 

There were other reasons a normal person might be jealous of Archie Andrews. His athletic prowess, for instance. He let Archie drag him to the gym on a regular basis, though what had started as a reluctant and pathetic attempt to spend a little more time with his best (and only) friend during their freshman year of college had turned into something he would have kept up on his own; much as he hated to admit it, the endorphins really did help dissipate the gray fog that sometimes threatened to overtake his brain. Still, Jughead had genuinely never wanted any of that for himself—not the high school letterman’s jacket, not the attention from cheerleaders that the letterman’s jacket brought, not even the enormous biceps and cheese grater abs.

(He would never have admitted it out loud to anyone, even Archie, but he rather liked the long-and-lean physique he’d wound up with. It seemed to go with the struggling author aesthetic.) 

But this? The slight nausea he felt watching Archie dip and twirl Veronica around the dance floor? This was a new kind of jealousy. It wasn’t about Veronica herself. He had eyes, so he could see that Veronica was attractive, could recognize she possessed a sparkling wit and fierce intelligence and many other good qualities. 

He didn’t want Veronica Lodge. But, for what felt like the first time in his life, he thought he might want _someone_. 

 

 

The evening being what it was, however, he got Veronica Lodge. He’d been deliberately watching the orchestra, trying to keep his eyes off the happy couple, but Veronica suddenly materialized at his elbow. 

“Come on, Phantom of the Opera,” she said, grabbing his hand and tugging him to his feet. She was surprisingly strong for someone so petite. “Time to get you out of the shadows.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Up and at’em.” She started pulling him towards the dance floor. “The night is still young! And I promised your boyfriend I wouldn’t let you wallow in your own misery all night.” 

Jughead scoffed. “One, he’s your boyfriend, not mine. Two, I’m not wallowing. Three, have you been watching me?” 

Two arched eyebrows emerged from under the cat mask. “You had _two_ drinks. Archie says that means dangerous levels of wallowing.” They were on the floor now, and Veronica went ahead and arranged his arms where she wanted them. He let her, but only because now that he’d stood up, the champagne really was kicking in, and acquiescing seemed easier than putting up a fight. 

They began to dance. 

“And where is Archie?” 

“I’ve deputized him to step on another girl’s feet for a bit. Now—” She sighed. “Jughead, this is a waltz. It’s three-quarters time.” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Jughead said, although he in fact did. 

“You absolutely know what that means. You’re just refusing to move that way.” 

From underneath his mask, he glared as hard as he could. Veronica merely grinned. 

“One, two, three. One, two, three. Bend your knees. Relax. This is supposed to be fun, you know.”

“You and I have very different definitions of fun.” 

Veronica grinned again. She dropped one of his hands, lifted his other arm into the air, and twirled herself. 

“And now I see where Archie learned to dance,” he said, when she’d finished spinning. He obediently returned his other hand to Veronica’s hip. After a glance over his shoulder, she began steering them. Jughead couldn’t tell where they were going, but decided to keep letting Veronica lead. 

“Precisely. In fact, I think you’re better than he is.” She gave a sigh, one laced with affection. “Between the athleticism and the music, you’d think he’d have a better handle on all this dancing stuff. He just gets so worked up about maybe making a mistake that he winds up making all of them. It’s egregiously adorable.”

She pulled back and gave herself another twirl, just as the orchestra concluded its waltz. 

“We have arrived,” Veronica said cheerfully. 

Jughead followed her gaze and found they were now standing next to Archie, who had his arms around a woman Jughead did not, of course, recognize. 

“Change places!” Veronica ordered, in a surprisingly good imitation of the Mad Hatter. Archie took Veronica back, and Jughead suddenly found Archie’s partner in his arms. “Forsythe, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, Forsythe.” 

She’d barely gotten out a quick “Hello” before the orchestra started up again. 

As both couples began dancing, Jughead turned his head so the woman—Elizabeth—couldn’t see his face, and mouthed _Forsythe?_ at Veronica. 

Veronica grinned. “It’s such a Prince Charming kind of name, don’t you think, Archibald? Totally appropriate for a masquerade.” Her grin became a little broader. “Treat my girl like the princess she is, _Forsythe_.” 

Great. Jughead turned his head back to his partner with the unfortunate thought that anyone Veronica dubbed “her girl” was bound to be a second Veronica. 

As he took his first clear look at Elizabeth, he decided that thought was correct—although aside from their glossy, jet-black hair, the two looked nothing alike. Actually, even the glossy, jet-black hair was different. Veronica’s was long and swept into a chignon, while Elizabeth wore hers in a severe chin-length bob, complete with blunt-cut bangs. Her skin was a waspish winter pale to Veronica’s olive. She was fairly tall, fairly broad-shouldered, and slender without being skinny, all shown off nicely by her floor-length black lace gown. Under her black lace-trimmed mask, her eyes were a piercing sort of green—but completely overwhelmed by her crimson lipstick. 

It was all a bit _much_. Not for her, precisely; she had the kind of cold affectation that was particularly suited for such a getup. But it was a bit much for him, especially since she was undoubtedly one of Veronica’s society friends. And really, in the end, exactly like Veronica: objectively attractive, but that was all. She’d be tolerable for a short time, like Veronica, but not someone he’d associate with unless there was an intermediary presence. 

“Forsythe, eh?” she said, the corners of her lips twisting down. 

_It’s only one dance_ , he told himself. Buoyed by that thought, and by the champagne, he nodded. 

They made no conversation through the first dance. As the orchestra wound down, he prepared to release her, but she didn’t seem to be in the mood to be released. 

“The rule is two,” she said, in an oddly constricted tone of voice. “Two songs.” 

“Says who? We’re not at a Regency ball,” he replied. 

“Says Veronica.” 

Jughead couldn’t keep his eyes from rolling. 

“It’s just easier to let her have her way,” Elizabeth muttered. 

The next song started—another waltz. Though Jughead’s eyes were still rolling uncontrollably, he let Elizabeth start to move him across the floor again. 

 

 

They didn’t speak again, which was fine with him and, he thought, ought to be fine with her. She certainly seemed to be about as into this whole Veronica Lodge-inspired encounter as he was; in fact, she was scanning the dance floor. 

“Looking for an out?” 

Her eyes snapped onto his. “No, just looking for Veronica.” 

“Do you not have seventy other friends here?” 

Her lips pressed together, making a thin, red line. “No. Again, just Veronica.” 

“Oh,” he said, feeling a little embarrassed. Was she _not_ a society girl, then?

The song ended, and this time Elizabeth dropped all contact with him. “Thanks for the dance, Forsythe,” she practically spat, before disappearing into the crowd. 

Jughead watched her go, then shrugged and made for the chair he’d previously occupied. Unfortunately, someone else had claimed it. “Goddamnit,” he muttered under his breath. 

 

 

For lack of anything better to do, he decided he’d find the men’s room. If nothing else, taking off the stupid mask for a bit and splashing water on his face would make him feel a little better. 

Once in the men’s room—mask off, face successfully splashed and dried—he pulled out his phone to check the time. It wasn’t anywhere _close_ to midnight. 

“Goddamnit,” he muttered again. He shoved the phone back in his pocket, not bothering to smooth out the handkerchief (apparently a standard feature of rented tuxedos) that it smashed down. 

He could, of course, just leave, but he’d promised Archie he’d stick out the night. It had been a spectacularly dumb promise to make. Balls were for couples, or people capable of forming couples. They were for rich people. They were not for misanthropic loners from the wrong side of the tracks, not even ones dressed in midnight blue tuxedoes with velvet lapels. 

He put the mask back on. 

 

Jughead had not promised Archie he’d spend the entire evening in the ballroom. The masquerade was being held in a very fancy hotel, and the rest of the floor didn’t seem to be off limits, so he decided to peruse it for a bit. If nothing else, he could use a break from being in a room with hundreds of people and loud classical music. 

He could still hear the music, of course. 

As he strolled past a little alcove—the kind of nook that might have held courtesy phones back in the day—he also heard a faint, strangled sort of sob. Before he could quite tell himself to run in the other direction, he’d glanced inside the alcove. 

Instead of courtesy phones, it now held an empty built-in shelf, a sort of Victorian fainting couch, and Veronica’s friend Elizabeth, who was hunched over on one end of it. Her mask was off, her shoes were on the floor, and her legs were drawn under her. Pink toenails peeked out from the hem of her gown. She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. 

“Sorry,” he said. Elizabeth looked like she wanted to be alone, and even if she didn’t want that, he knew he was the last person she’d want to see. He would have known this even had she not been glaring at him as though he was the last person she wanted to see. 

She swiped a palm under one eye, wiping away the tears that had accumulated there. Just before Jughead turned away, he noticed a streak of pale, watery red had spread across her face. Her lipstick remained completely untouched. 

“Shit,” he muttered. “Uh…are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Trust me, this has nothing to do with you.” 

“Yeah, okay. Uh…you’re bleeding, though, I think?” 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Elizabeth spat. She grabbed her clutch purse and opened it with some difficulty—her hands were both clenched tightly into fists now. “Fuck,” she said again, tucking the purse under one arm. She stood up, wobbling slightly as she shoved her feet back into her heels.  
“Sit,” Jughead said. He dug the handkerchief out from under his phone and handed it to her. “You want some water?” 

Elizabeth shook her head. “No.” 

He went to get some anyway. And some Kleenex. When he returned, she had her shoes off again, but seemed marginally more composed. 

She was also a blonde now—or rather, he realized, she’d been a blonde all along. Long, wavy golden tresses cascaded down her back. A jet black, bobbed wig lay crumpled at the edge of the fainting couch. 

“I said I didn’t want water.” 

He handed her a bottle anyway, along with the Kleenex. “I won’t force you to drink it.” 

“Why are you even here?” she demanded. She squeezed a wad of Kleenex in each hand. 

“Veronica Lodge,” he said, aiming for a tone of dramatic irony and, he was sure, falling well short of it. “Or, if you meant here specifically, I need the handkerchief back.” 

“Right.” She held it out to him. “Sorry. It’s a little bloody.” 

He shrugged and shoved it back in his pocket. Then, for whatever reason, he continued to not leave. 

“Do you want me to go find Veronica for you?” 

Elizabeth shook her head. “No. Let her have her fun. I’ll be fine.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you, though, Forsythe.” 

He cringed, and found that—even though he assumed they’d never speak again—he couldn’t walk away. “It’s Jughead,” he said. 

“What?” 

“I know it’s just as bad as Forsythe. But…”

A curious look had come over Elizabeth’s face. “You’re _Jughead_?” 

“Uh…” 

“Archie keeps talking about you.” She sat up a little straighter and patted the end of the couch. “I mean, I’m assuming he doesn’t know two Jugheads.” 

“He does not.” 

Elizabeth patted the end of the couch again, and this time, he sat down. “God, I should have guessed,” she said. “Veronica’s been threatening to set me up with you for weeks now.” 

He swallowed. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.” 

“Yeah, I know. Archie insisted if you figured out she was trying to play matchmaker with you, you’d never show up to wherever it was.” She unscrewed the water bottle cap and took a sip. “Are you going to leave your mask on?” 

He immediately took it off. 

“Oh,” Elizabeth said, softly. “Oh, Veronica was right. You _are_ cute.” 

He didn’t know quite how to react to that, and so took a sip of his own water, somehow managing not to choke on it. 

“So…” he started, when he felt a little more composed. “So Veronica and Archie have been—what, conspiring?” 

She nodded. “And I should have figured it out the moment she shoved us together tonight. I just—I’ve had a rough month. You don’t need to know the details, but…” She sighed. “Family stuff. I have some…underlying anxiety issues anyway. And I don’t know how well you know Veronica, but she gets these ideas, like—”

“‘Come to the masquerade ball, it’ll be great, I’ll dress you and you won’t even feel like yourself’?” he said, in his best Veronica Lodge impersonation. 

Elizabeth let out a tiny laugh. “Yeah, exactly that. Anyway, I should have put two and two together when she said ‘Forsythe’ instead of ‘Jughead,’ but.” 

“It’s amazing how _wrong_ she was about that,” he said, casting a glance down at the tuxedo. When he looked up again, he found Elizabeth’s eyebrow quirked. “The not feeling like yourself thing,” he clarified. 

“No,” she said. “It’s amazing how _right_ she was. This is the first time all night I’ve felt remotely like myself.” 

“Huh. Maybe I should’ve gone blonde.” 

Elizabeth laughed again. “Maybe. Or maybe not. That was all a slightly out-of-body experience. I’m not sure I can recommend it.” 

The red had started to fade from her eyes now. Despite the tears she’d cried, her dark eye makeup remained flawless. Veronica was responsible for that magic too, he supposed. He wondered how much of Elizabeth’s alter ego was the result of Veronica’s meddling. If any of it was, Veronica’s matchmaking skills needed a serious upgrade. He knew that even Archie would have very little evidence to go on, in regards to what Jughead would find attractive, but the fact was that Veronica's friend Elizabeth was merely pretty in Velma Kelly drag. Out of it, she was fucking _stunning_. 

Jughead swallowed. He stood up, feeling suddenly lightheaded. 

“Do you want to try this again?” he asked. “This…dancing thing?” 

“Um…” Elizabeth glanced down shyly—or no, he realized a moment later. She wasn’t being demure; she was peeking under the Kleenex. “I do, but…god, this is embarrassing. I’m still bleeding.” She unfurled her fingers, and he briefly saw four tiny crescent-shaped gouges in her palm, each oozing red, before she curled her fingers closed again. “It’s just, like, a nervous habit. I don’t usually realize I’m doing it. I thought I’d gotten over doing it, honestly.” 

Without really knowing why, Jughead leaned over, took her hand, and kissed her finger tips. She shot him a funny look, both eyebrows and mouth quirked, and he shrugged. 

“Veronica said to treat you like a princess.” 

“Veronica is ridiculous sometimes,” she said, slipping her shoes back on. “I make a terrible princess. You know what my favorite hobby is? Restoring old cars.” 

Jughead pulled his mask back on, and Elizabeth did the same. She stood, and he offered her his arm. She took it, and he found himself fighting a little grin. 

“That’s good,” he said. “If the pumpkin carriage breaks down, we won’t have to call anyone.” 

“Yeah, I don’t know if I can restore a pumpkin. Besides—princess I may not be, but I don’t intend to turn into a scullery maid at midnight.” 

“Not you, me,” Jughead muttered. At Elizabeth’s puzzled look, he shrugged. “Look, the important thing is that we never admit to Veronica that she might be a good fairy godmother.” 

“Agreed.” 

“Then shall we, Princess Elizabeth?” 

“Betty,” she said suddenly. “I go by Betty.” 

_Betty_. It was weirdly old-fashioned. He decided he liked it. There were a million millenial Elizabeths in the world, after all. 

“Princess Betty, then.” 

 

 

The black wig was left, abandoned, on the fainting couch. Betty danced with fresh Kleenex wrapped around her palms. By midnight, the bleeding had long since ceased, and when the ball dropped she slid all ten fingertips across the back of his neck and pulled him close. He couldn’t remember having ever kissed anyone on New Year’s Eve before, and decided he liked that too, even as their masks scraped together and the elastic band cut uncomfortably into the back of his ears. 

Betty’s eyes fluttered open. “Whoops,” she whispered, though she didn’t sound the slightest bit regretful. 

It had been hours since Jughead’s champagne, but he still felt dangerously, delightfully heady. _Screw the masquerade_ , he thought, quickly pushing up Betty’s mask and then his own before kissing her again. This time he felt her nose press against his, felt her tongue push gently against his lips, and before he quite knew what was happening, they were a hair’s breadth away from full-on making out. 

“Oh, Archiekins,” he heard, which caused them both to slow down. He’d closed his eyes for the kiss, but now opened them to find none other than his fairy godmother standing behind Betty, a delighted (yet somehow still slightly wicked) grin on her face. “What did I tell you?”

 

 

 

 

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is the first time I've written these two as adults. Huh. 
> 
> Comments/kudos are always appreciated :)


End file.
